ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Garage Bid?

I think the best advice I could give a fledgling EC, or any other prospective small businessman, is to have plenty of money before you start. Like the old joke goes, the best way to make a small fortune is to start with a big one.
The problem is if you bid high you won't get a lot of work but bidding low is worse. You get plenty of work and lose money on every job.
Being a good electrician may be one of the least important skills in actually being a successful electrical contractor. Managing the money is the hard part.


[This message has been edited by gfretwell (edited 07-06-2005).]

I somewhat disagree with most of your posts and this is why:

Taking into account, that labor prices do vary from location to location as pointed out by Ray, guys in the bay area and probably hawaii vs guys from Oklahoma and texas, will make a difference, BUT:

I totally disagree with those of you who stated the iternet is not a place to provide pricing, or is not wise.

How many of us search ebay for things?
How many of us buy things online because you found it cheaper here?
How many new cars are bought online, because it is cheaper than the sleaze ball dealers?

Whether it is our trade or someone elses, consumers need to get an idea of what things go for, whether it is in the form of 3 or 4 quotes from local contractors or whether from a online source.
Make no mistake about this, there are sites already out there. Some of you may find them ridicolous(spelling), but they will provide information to consumers. And there will be more to come in the future.

I am all for it.

I don't do too much residential work, but I do, as a free service to people, tell them how much they should look forward to spending when hiring someone in my area.

Myself as a consumer, I want to know, what is the going rate for a HVAC guy, I want to know what the going rate of a plumber is.
This way, when some screwball, gives me a price of $500 to charge my AC unit up a pound, I can tell him to take a hike.

My area has a ton of "Scammers", guys who take out full page adds, lease a bunch of trucks, and pull out those "pricing books", and tell people this is the going rate.


However, if people really knew that parts sold at the supply houses for a complete service go for @$500, and you pay a guy 8hrs to do it, the bill should be somewhere around $1500. Give and take for the obvious complications, but $5000 being the norm?
And the panel is in the garage!

$525 to change out a gfci? Because he has a high overhead?

Cut me a break.....

Arming consumers with information is a good thing, and we are all consumers of something.


Dnk...........

Dnk, consumers are also part of the problem. They do not understand overhead. In my short foray into low voltage wiring on my own I was constantly harrangued about my prices. I told folks it was $100 to start my truck and $20 a drop, plus materials and barring any complications.
I figured out I was losing money fast.
Once they started calling around they figured out I was the cheapest guy in town.
It's why I went broke (figuratively).
When IBM was doing it they would not touch a job for less than $50,000 and they lost money.

You bet they are part of the problem, the guy who thinks everything should cost less than $50, would get a real eye opener when he sees that an electrician in his area should get $75-$100hr plus trip charge.

He might just come to the realization that nothing can get done these days for $50.


Dnk.....

If you have a high overhead, you have to charge more to cover it, no brainer.

To be competitive, you have to keep overhead down.

A guy with a ton of overhead is easy to compete against, and if not controlled, that guys overhead puts him out of business in no time.

Don't bite off more than you can chew theory.

Having said all this on this topic, the best quality guy with the fairest prices, "not the cheapest" never seems to struggle, ever....

Dnk.....

When people find a good builder, plumber, electrician, or car mechanic, they hang on to them, they tell their friends. If you build up a good reputation you will never be short of work. So try to bid a fair price, maybe a bit more for the jobs you hate.

Dnk....unless you entend to do residential electrical work in your area, your pricing guide means nothing. I don't mean to offend in any way, but that's like me trying to quote what a mechanic should charge. I know what I would like to pay but that doesn't get the car fixed. When you buy something on the internet it gets shipped to you, try shippig an electrician by UPS. Even if you went around doing work for free in your area it wouldn't change the overall dynamics of the pricing game. The going rate is whatever the public will bear in a given area. These " scammers" as you call them have changed the pricing structure in our area. As they make more money, they can afford more advertising, as they get more customers they can make more money. If you think that giving poeple more reasonable rates will get you business, then think again. I have regular customers that expect rates from 10 years ago and when they don't get it, guess who they call. The scammers with the " flat rate saves you money add". Poeple are stupid and should be charged every last penny that a contractor can get.

I agree with growler - When people ask me how much something should have or will cost, I tell them what my price would be, not what someone else's price SHOULD be. I never second guess another EC. Likewise I never slam another EC. We are all just trying to make a living. There are lowlife guys out there who will bad mouth the competition just to make themselves look better, but people see thru that pretty quickly.

Clarification: I agree with growler on most of his points, I do not agree that in general, people are stupid and should be charged every last penny ~~ etc. I beleive in fairness, we've been in business since 1980, our reputation of being fair honest and competent has been the reason we have kept our customers for so long. We don't do residential work, but our commercial customers for the most part, don't even bother to get competitive quotes anymore.

Learjet, I don't even believe in that last penny thing. I was in a bad mood for awhile. Some people can do that to you. If you were to see my invoices, you would know that I'm more fair than most. But my prices are my prices and I can't quote for the guy down the street and I definately can't quote across the country. If pricing is done up-front and agreed to, then it's a legal transaction and it's up to the consumer to shop for a better deal if they can find it. Those "scammers" are now the most successful service contractors in my area. I'm not going to work for 40% of what they charge just to brag about how honest I am. If my advertising cost go up because people respond better to big adds, then the cost get passed along to some one. Who says that a gallon of gas is worth $2.50, we do because we pay it. The customer always sets the price for any goods or services, when they stop buying the price goes down.